2026 Effie Awards South Africa winners announced

on 22 October 2026

Effie Awards South Africa announced its 2026 winners at The Venue, Melrose Arch, celebrating the ideas, strategies and measurable results that define marketing effectiveness. Following another record year for entries, the programme recognised 45 finalists and awarded 27 trophies: one Grand Effie, four Gold, ten Silver and twelve Bronze.

Hosted by the Association for Communication and Advertising (ACA), this year’s celebration also introduced South Africa’s first Effie Marketer of the Year and Agency of the Year recognitions, awarded to Women for Change and Joe Public respectively.

The Grand Effie, the highest honour recognising South Africa’s most effective campaign of the year, was awarded to Edelman South Africa and Women for Change for “The Unburied Casket” in the Non-Profit category.

2026 Effie Awards Winners Table

AWARD	AGENCY	CLIENT	BRAND	CAMPAIGN	CATEGORY
Grand	Edelman South Africa	Women For Change	Women For Change	The Unburied Casket	Non-Profit
Gold	Edelman South Africa	Women For Change	Women For Change	The Unburied Casket	Social Good – Brands / Positive Change
Gold	Clockwork	The Salvation Army	The Salvation Army x National GBV Command Centre	Escape It	Non-Profit
Gold	Joe Public	Uber Eats South Africa	Uber Eats	Own the Hours Others Abandoned	Delivery Services
Gold	Edelman South Africa	Women For Change	Women For Change	The Unburied Casket	Non-Profit
Silver	McCann Joburg	SA Heart Association	SA Heart® (South African Heart Association)	Check My Beat: Heart Health Tracks	Small Budgets – Non-Profit, Products, Services
Silver	Joe Public	Uber Eats South Africa	Uber Eats	Own the Hours Others Abandoned	Marketing Disruptors
Silver	KAMuses Consultancy	KFC South Africa	KFC Africa	Add Hope The Biggest Hunger Hack	Social Good – Brands / Positive Change
Silver	Clockwork	The Salvation Army	The Salvation Army x National GBV Command Centre	Escape It	Social Good – Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
Silver	Joe Public	Chicken Licken	Chicken Licken	Nothing to Bite Into. Everything to Talk About.	Restaurants
Silver	Joe Public	SAB (AB InBev)	Castle Milk Stout	The Revealing Pour: A print ad that went beyond ink and paper.	Media Innovation – Emerging & New Channels, Existing Channels / Media Effies
Silver	Ogilvy	KFC South Africa	KFC South Africa	Obsessively Building KFC’s Taste Platform to Unlock a New Generation of Fanatics	Sustained Success – Products, Services
Silver	Ogilvy and Ogilvy Singapore	Unilever South Africa	Vaseline PJ	How Vaseline Rewrote the Rules of Trust in the Social Era	Marketing Disruptors
Silver	Ogilvy	Volkswagen Group, South Africa	Volkswagen South Africa	Forever Golf – How VW Turned a 47‑Year Nickname Tradition into a Record‑Breaking Golf 8 Launch.	Engaged Community
Silver	Ogilvy	Audi South Africa	Audi	TikTok Test Drive: How Audi turned TikTok’s scroll into a steering wheel	Social Media
Bronze	KAMuses Consultancy	KFC South Africa	KFC Africa	Add Hope The Biggest Hunger Hack	Corporate Reputation
Bronze	Clockwork	The Salvation Army	The Salvation Army x National GBV Command Centre	Escape It	Media Idea / Media Effies
Bronze	Clockwork	The Salvation Army	The Salvation Army x National GBV Command Centre	Escape It	Small Budgets – Non-Profit, Products, Services
Bronze	Joe Public	SAB (AB InBev)	Castle Milk Stout	The Revealing Pour: A print ad that went beyond ink and paper.	Small Budgets – Non-Profit, Products, Services
Bronze	Joe Public	Takealot	Takealot	Takealot: the marketing case for hyperlocal marketing	Multicultural – Products, Services
Bronze	Ogilvy	Google	Google	What Happens When Search Never Leaves The Gen Z Feed?	Youth Marketing
Bronze	Joe Public	SAB (AB InBev)	Flying Fish	Out Of Your Home: How We Made Flying Fish impossible to ignore	Media Innovation – Emerging & New Channels, Existing Channels / Media Effies
Bronze	Ogilvy	YUM Brands	KFC South Africa	When Everyone Went Cheap, KFC Went Bottomless	Seasonal Marketing – Products, Services
Bronze	Promise Group	SAB (AB InBev)	Castle Lite	The Draught Story	Sustained Success – Products, Services
Bronze	Boundless	South African Breweries	South African Breweries	Forever Committed	Corporate Reputation
Bronze	Ogilvy	Volkswagen Group, South Africa	Volkswagen South Africa	Forever Golf – How VW Turned a 47‑Year Nickname Tradition into a Record‑Breaking Golf 8 Launch.	Brand Content & Entertainment
Bronze	Ogilvy	SAB (AB InBev)	Carling Black Label	Carling Black Label – Be The Champion Coach: reimagined as the highest-stakes fan mechanic in SA football	Engaged Community

Tags: 2026 Effie Awards